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North Carolina in the New South: Primary sources and readings explore North Carolina in the decades after the Civil War (1870–1900). Topics include changes in agriculture, the growth of cities and industry, the experiences of farmers and mill workers, education, cultural changes, politics and political activism, and the Wilmington Race Riot. (Page 3.5)

North Carolina History: A Sampler: A sample of the more than 800 pages of our digital textbook for North Carolina history, including background readings, various kinds of primary sources, and multimedia. Also includes an overview of the textbook and how to use it. (Page 5.2)

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ALLEN TULLOS:
And what would be your work routine, what would you have to do through the day? Would you have to do so many bobbins, and then did you rest a while, or—?

NAOMI SIZEMORE TRAMMEL:
No. No, we just run the spinning frames. And of course they had to stop them and doff, you know, and take these full ones off, and put them on. All like that, but it wasn’t nothing to me, really. They’d do it—the doffers would do that. All I had to do was just—no, they put up all the threads and started it again, they had to do that. Fix it just like it was. But we had to clean our rollers, but that wasn’t hard.

ALLEN TULLOS:
So what was the main work that you had to do? What exactly?

NAOMI SIZEMORE TRAMMEL:
Well, you see, some of these threads would break, and if you didn’t catch it before they bundled up, why you have a mess there. And all you had to do just watch ‘em. And it’d run and run sometime before they even break a thread.

ALLEN TULLOS:
And if the thread broke you’d have to tie it up.

NAOMI SIZEMORE TRAMMEL:
You’d have to put it back up, you know.

ALLEN TULLOS:
Would you have to tie a knot in it at all?

NAOMI SIZEMORE TRAMMEL:
No, you just had to take it in—they was rollers. Cotton, you know. And all you had to do just put it off and stick it up there, around it’d go. It’s easy.

ALLEN TULLOS:
And so most of the time you were kind of watching.

NAOMI SIZEMORE TRAMMEL:
Oh, you had to watch it, you know, if you didn’t it’d roll around there and make a mess. And you’d have to take your roller out and clean it. So it wasn’t no … sometime I’d run six frames. And the other girls would, too.

LEARN NC, a program of the UNC School of Education, finds the most innovative and successful practices in K-12 education and makes them available to the teachers and students of North Carolina - and the world.